By now the League had seen many dark memories of the Batman, though not all of them were horrifying and traumatizing although they were still deeply personal.
They had watched many aspects of Robin's vigilante career. They had seen the many arguments between Batman and Robin but also between Bruce and Dick. They had seen the final argument between them where Dick had abandoned the Robin Mantle and struck out on his own as Nightwing. But they had also seen the rise of a new Robin, a different Robin.
And the new Robin really was different; he was loud, brash and aggressive. He wasn't like Dick who followed Bruce's orders to the best of his ability. He forged his own destiny, one filled with beaten criminals who were injured beyond even what Batman had ever done. There was no doubt about it; the new Robin was brutal beyond belief. But despite his great rage the League saw that he genuinely cared about the people he helped; the poor, the downtrodden and the needy. He helped them because he wanted to.
But the League also noticed that as the memories went on they became more and more filled with anger and rage and righteous fury. Numerous incidents were viewed with questionable details: criminals with broken collarbones, even one incident with a death to one such criminal.
Eventually all of that rage coalesced into the final memory of Robin II, the final memory of the boy known as Jason Todd.
It all started with a birth certificate, Jason's birth certificate. For the entirety of his 16 years of life he had always believed his mother to be Catherine Todd, wife of Willis Todd. His birth certificate said different. It stated that his mother was a woman named Sheila Haywood. It didn't take much digging with the supercomputer in the Bat-Cave to discover that Sheila Haywood was still alive.
It didn't take long for him to be on the first plane to Ethiopia. However that is when things begin to spiral. The League watch captivated as Batman discovers the burned out wreckage of an abandoned warehouse. They watch as he digs desperately through the rubble until he came across two corpses. One clearly is shielding the other, one wearing the remnants of a bright red costume with a black cape. One that was clearly Jason, despite the severe burns.
They watch as Batman arranges for the body to be returned to the United States through some contacts. They watch as he discovers the CCTV footage of what had happened to Jason. They see the horrors that were inflicted upon the boy. They heard the thunk as the crowbar hit flesh again, and again, and again. Backhand. Forehand. Alternating, trying to discover which was better, all the while laughing insanely.
The League watched as the second Robin's life was ended by one sick, deranged clown. And then they watched the aftermath, they watched as the anger filled Batman with a deep, burning rage that was all consuming.
Through the memory they discovered that the Joker was still at large but they watched as the Dark Knight relentlessly hunted him, tracking him across the globe, barely stopping for rest. They watch as he finally catches up to the Joker. They watch as he mercilessly beats the Joker, hitting him with everything he's got. And then they heard the Joker say something that caused Batman to stop, "You finally gonna do it, Batsy? You finally gonna put me outta my misery? Is this gonna be the one thing that causes you to break that one little rule o' yours? God, I hope so. That would make it meaningful. I would finally have broken you." They then listened as the Joker descended into a psychotic laughing fit, wheezing due to the severe broken ribs and damaged throat.
They watched as Batman slowly backed away before calling the police to come and collect the Joker. They watched as the Batman went back to the darkness of his Cave and collapse in his chair. And they watched as the Batman, the Dark Knight Detective, tireless defender of Gotham City broke down in tears, both for what had happened and for what he had almost done.
That's when the memory dissipated around them. Batman refused to make eye contact, maintaining his sorrowful glare into the darkness of his own mind, as if daring it to show more.
The League had no idea what to say. What could they say? They had known nothing about the death of a Robin; most people hadn't really noticed a transition between Robins. To the public and the media, all Robins were the same Robin. There was no distinction between them. Nobody knew that a Robin had been brutally murdered by a crazed psychopath. No one knew that a Robin had had to pay the ultimate price. Nobody knew the pain that the Dark Knight had suffered. A pain deeper than any physical wound, a pain that haunted him still. And there was nothing they could do to comfort or support him and they knew that he would not accept either comfort or support. The Batman was truly darkness incarnate.